Adelaide pasta manufacturer, Italia Pasta Fresca, is introducing a pasta bar on Friday and Saturday nights - and says it's just the beginning.

Co-owner of pasta manufacturer Italia Pasta Fresca, Claudio Ferraro, is proud of his Italian heritage.

“We grew up with our mums making pasta in the kitchen. I’ve got my mum’s wood board back here that we make cavatelli on,” Claudio says.

“When you see it being made at home by your mum on Sunday mornings when you’re there, making the sugo, making the pasta, and you’re eating fresh. 

“Yeah, that’s a part of who we are.”

Italia Pasta Fresca stocks freshly made pasta – ranging from tortellini to spaghetti – alongside ready-made sauces. 

Established in 1975,  the Italia Pasta Fresca brand was bought by Claudio, who founded Cibo Espresso and also owns Valentinos, Eugenio Maiale, a Sydney restaurateur, and Nick Palumbo, the founder of Gelato Messina, in 2022.

“For us, we know Italia Pasta Fresca from the hospitality industry, it was always a pasta manufacturer that we knew was out there doing stuff during our days in restaurants,” Claudio says. 

“We always wanted to be in business together for many years but for one reason or another, we hadn’t actually had the right arc to cross and become unified, and we saw this as an opportunity to do that,” Eugenio says. 

“So we thought that it had the foundation, it had history, had a good reputation in the market. It was tired, it just needed fresh blood and just needed a new brand and new life and innovation. But the foundation was laid, and so we thought that it was cool to tap into,” Claudio continues.

Old-school pasta machine in Italia Pasta Fresca

The three owners first wanted to change the cosmetics of the shop. 

“We were looking two days ago at the original video when we walked in here before we bought it, and it was like fake salami, fake cappacuolo, you know… fake cheeses,” Claudio says. 

“And all the shop front was full of merchandise – like a 1980s style of deli, and it was cool for what it was.

“We’ve seen pasta shops around the world and how they look so we’ve seen ideas on how we want to represent pasta and give it a new look in Adelaide, and that’s what we did.”

The interiors are simple, but still representative of Italian tropes – green and red plastic chairs with black and white tiling, leaving the pasta cabinets and fresh sauces on display as the main attraction. 

Molto bene!

They also made slight tweaks to original pasta recipes to make them “a little more health conscious”, which includes quality ingredients.

“For example, we’ve tweaked the Napolitana sauce recipe and we’ve introduced another three sauce lines,” Eugenio says. 

“We’re just using very, very beautiful tomatoes to make the sauces, using different flours.” 

“So they used to use semolina, for example, to make an egg pasta, and we went to durum wheat, which is more of a raw, more robust, harder wheat,” Claudio elaborates. 

“And when you look at the colour, durum is a beautiful gold, yellow colour, and semolina is more whiter unbleached but lighter.”

Despite the changes, the team wants to keep the ethos of the original manufacturer intact. 

“We stay true to the homage of that era of fresh Italian pasta. It’s a snapshot in a moment in time that the Italian pasta makers 45 years ago when they came here, that’s how they remembered Italy,” Eugenio says. 

On March 1, the Italia Pasta Fresca team will introduce Pasta Nights on Fridays and Saturdays. This will be the brand’s first chance at a dinner experience and will showcase the manufactured products available for purchase, but cooked by the Italia Pasta Fresca team. 

“I mean, we do pasta right,” Eugenio says. “That’s what we do, and we saw it as being a perfect opportunity to invite customers in to experience all things pasta and showcase what we can do with pasta.

“There’ll be some quirky sauces that we may use [that are] a little bit more experimental.

“We’ll be using traditional recipes or methods to create what’s in the now.”

What’s set to hit the menu is a range of antipasti — which includes Claudio’s infamous ciabatta bread — and small sides designed to share like fried calamari, peperonata and olive ascolane. However, the main feature will, of course, be the pasta with an “approachable, very simple, no fuss” style, according to Eugenio. 

“We’ll feature the tortellini that we have because, for me, I think it’s one of the best tortellini I’ve ever had. It tastes like you’re in Italy, and we’ll be serving that as a little bit of a starter just in broth,” Eugenio says. 

“Our handcrafted tagliolini just with crab, chilli, a little bit of tomato and that’s it.

“We’re going to do our hand-carved cavatelli with pork and fennel sausages, chilli, white wine and cavolo nero.

“And then our hand-cut pappardelle with a slow-cooked wagyu beef, tomato ragu with freshly shaved horseradish — if I can get it.”

Although the team has only just announced their Pasta Nights, they assure CityMag that this is only the beginning for the brand. 

“This is a project, and this is a little starter of what’s to come,” Eugenio says. 

Claudio and Eugeno will also open a restaurant next door to Adelaide’s first Gelato Messina store in the middle of the year. Although the duo keep their cards close to their chest, they say it “won’t be another Italian restaurant”.

“There will be a lot of Italian in it, but it’s not just the Italian,” Eugenio says as the head chef of the nameless new venture. 

“It’s going to be a place that we’re going to basically just have fun together. We’re going to go out and we’re going to pick our own produce, we’re going to jump in the van and go to the markets.”

Pasta Nights at Italia Pasta Fresca is slated to open on Friday, March 1, and is located at 219A Henley Beach Road, Torrensville.

Connect with the business on Instagram for more.